Regional Outlook — VIC1: Thursday 28 May 2026

The Victorian spot price sits at $110.50/MWh as of the 06:30 AEST settlement interval, materially below the elevated levels recorded through the morning and midday peak, where prices repeatedly touched $179–$191/MWh and demand reached a intraday high above 7,350 MW. Demand now sits at 5,603 MW, consistent with the post-evening-peak wind-down on a mild autumn Friday — current temperature is 11.4°C with a heating demand index of 6.6 and full cloud cover. The 24-hour rolling average price has been firmly in the $130–$160/MWh range through most of the trading day, so the current $110.50/MWh represents a meaningful easing from that elevated band.

The generation mix is dominated by brown coal at 4,357 MW, accounting for roughly 79% of local output. Gas OCGT contributes 542 MW (approximately 10%), wind is generating 577 MW (around 10%), hydro adds 15.5 MW, and battery dispatch is negligible at 0.2 MW. Solar output is zero, consistent with the overnight settlement window. Renewable penetration sits at 10.8%, up from the day's trough of around 4–5% recorded during the morning peak when wind was lower. Carbon intensity is 1.032 tCO2/MWh, modestly improved from the 1.10–1.11 tCO2/MWh levels seen during this morning's high-demand period, reflecting the slightly higher wind share now present in the mix.

Predispatch forecasts point to prices rising back into the $127–$129/MWh range for the 07:00 AEST half-hour and $129–$158/MWh for 07:30 AEST, signalling the market anticipates the overnight-to-morning demand ramp lifting prices off current levels as Victoria moves into Friday's morning peak. The forecast series for the 07:30 AEST target interval shows notable spread — the most recent run (20:01 UTC) has tightened to $129/MWh while earlier pre-dispatch runs had that interval as high as $199/MWh — indicating meaningful uncertainty around the overnight transition. Load window analysis flags the overnight period from approximately 09:30–11:30 AEST (Friday) as the most attractive consumption window, with forecast prices in the $10.50–$35/MWh range across multiple intervals.

No active market notices directly affect Victorian infrastructure today. The most relevant recent notice for VIC is the active inter-regional transfer limit variation on the Koorangie–Wemen 220 kV line (constraint set V-KOWE, invoked 25 May), which constrains flows on the VIC1–NSW1, V-SA, T-V-MNSP1 and V-S-MNSP1 interconnectors and remains active. AEMO also activated dynamic rating forecasting on the Murraylink constraint equations (VSML_RAT_LIM_DYN and SVML_RAT_LIM_DYN) from 27 May, which will affect pre-dispatch and PASA formulation for VIC–SA flows. Other active notices relate to NSW1 and QLD1 non-conformance events and are not expected to materially affect Victorian pricing today. Separately, AEMO has scheduled Marketnet Firewall maintenance for Saturday 30 May (09:00–